Michael Lev: Celebrating the wonderful, weird career of Nick Foles, ex-UA star and Super Bowl MVP

On Nov. 3, 2013, I boarded a plane from Los Angeles to Oakland to cover a game between the Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles.

I was working for the Orange County Register at the time, and my assignment was to write a column on Eagles rookie quarterback Matt Barkley, who was from Orange County and had starred at USC.

I did write that piece, but Barkley wasn’t the story that day at O.co Coliseum. Another Pac-12 product was.

That would be former Arizona standout Nick Foles, who tied the NFL record by throwing seven touchdown passes in a 49-20 Philadelphia triumph.

Foles was in his second season, and it sure seemed like a star had been born on that Sunday afternoon in Oakland.

Foles never achieved sustained stardom, though. He enjoyed a historic 2013 season but could never match it.

Foles’ career was marked by magical moments. The peaks were epic. And often unexpected. Wait, Nick Foles did what?!?

With Foles having announced his retirement Thursday at age 35, we’re here to commemorate a career that was both wonderful and — to use the descriptor du jour — a bit weird.

Let’s start with that Sunday in Oakland and that 2013 campaign. The Raiders weren’t exactly juggernauts at that point; between 2012 and ’14, they went 11-37.

But still ... seven touchdown passes? Are you kidding me?

Eight players have thrown seven TD passes in a game. They include Sid Luckman, George Blanda, Y.A. Tittle, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees. The first four are in the Hall of Fame; the other is about to be.

Foles completed 22 of 28 passes for 406 yards. He posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 — the only time he did that in his 11-year career spanning 71 regular-season appearances and six playoff starts.

Foles didn’t begin the ’13 season as the Eagles’ starter. That was Chip Kelly’s first year as Philly’s head coach, and he ran a college-style offense with Michael Vick at the helm that seemed revolutionary.

But Vick injured his hamstring in Week 5, allowing Foles to take over and take off. He finished the regular season with 27 touchdown passes and two interceptions — at the time, the best TD-INT ratio in NFL history. Only one quarterback has topped it — Tom Brady (28-2) in 2016.

Speaking of Brady, the GOAT played in a record 10 Super Bowls and won seven of them. Only two quarterbacks outdueled and defeated him on pro football’s biggest stage: Eli Manning and ... Nick Foles.

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You might look at their respective stats and conclude that Foles didn’t actually outduel Brady, who passed for a record 505 yards and three touchdowns in Super Bowl LII. Foles accounted for four touchdowns that night, including one of the most famous plays in Super Bowl history.

Foles is the only player to have thrown and caught a TD pass in the Super Bowl. He was on the receiving end of the “Philly Special” at the end of the first half, a brilliantly conceived, perfectly executed trick play on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line near the end of the first half.

Doug Pederson got the best of Bill Belichick. Nick Foles, by game’s end, got the best of Tom Brady. Kurt Warner couldn’t say that. Nor could Jake Delhomme, Donovan McNabb, Russell Wilson, Matt Ryan, Jared Goff or Patrick Mahomes.

In typical Foles fashion, he didn’t take a linear path to the top of the depth chart. By this point he was in his second stint with the Eagles, having spent the 2015 season with the Rams and the ’16 campaign with the Chiefs.

Foles rejoined Philadelphia to be the backup to rising star Carson Wentz, who suffered a season-ending torn ACL in a division-clinching win over the Rams in Week 14.

The Eagles didn’t lose a meaningful game the rest of the way, and Foles played nearly flawless football in the postseason. In three games, Foles passed for 971 yards with six touchdowns and one interception. He completed 72.6% of his throws and posted a 115.7 passer rating.

You could say that performance was fluky. I would say it was Folesian.

That Eagles-Raiders game wasn’t the first I had covered featuring Foles and Barkley. On Dec. 5, 2009, Arizona visited USC. Talk about weird: The game was the regular-season finale for both, played after the Territorial Cup and the USC-UCLA crosstown showdown.

It was a gloomy, low-energy afternoon in Los Angeles. The Trojans’ dynasty was coming to an end — three weeks earlier, USC lost 55-20 to Stanford in the “What’s your deal?” game — but they were still favored by a touchdown. Additionally, USC had won seven straight against Arizona.

It looked like it was going to be eight ... until Foles threw a 36-yard touchdown pass to Juron Criner with 3:14 remaining to give the Wildcats a 21-17 lead. The Barkley-led Trojans couldn’t gain a first down on the subsequent possession. The Cats ran the clock down to three seconds. An Earl Mitchell sack of Barkley ended it.

Not only did Arizona halt a seven-game skid against USC, that victory was one of only two by the Wildcats over the Trojans since 2000. (The other came in 2012, that wild 39-36 affair which ended with an unsuccessful Hail Mary.)

Even at Arizona, Foles’ journey was uniquely his. He arrived in Tucson as a transfer, which was considerably less common back then than it is today. He initially lost the QB battle in ’09 to Matt Scott, who didn’t take it back until Foles was in the NFL.

Foles left Arizona as the school’s all-time leading passer. Yet he never led the Wildcats to a bowl win.

In the NFL, Foles’ regular-season record as a starter was 29-29 — exactly .500. He played for six teams in 11 years. He never threw more than 13 TD passes in a season after 2013.

Foles’ football career was unlike any other. But I bet if you asked the record-holding Super Bowl MVP, he wouldn’t trade it for anyone’s.